148 sick from noro at a New York university; over $400K to clean up

The University of Rochester is spending an estimated $30,000 a day on external cleaning and supplies for their response to the Norovirus outbreak—and that’s only with about a quarter of infected students reporting.

norovirus-2The cost figure—provided by Holly Crawford, University CFO and Senior Vice President for Administration and Finance—ramped up on April 12 and has come as the rate of infection is dropping.

It will total nearly $400,000 by Monday and does not include additional internal costs, such as extra staffing and opportunity costs.

“There won’t be any changes this week [for extensive cleaning], but we will have to look at the future beyond that,” Dr. Ralph Manchester, Director of University Health Services (UHS), said.